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Wednesday, 18 June 2014

Hardline is the new Battlefield title recently announced at E3.
During the conference they also announced a Beta would go live. I
thought I’d post a few impressions from my time with it, about 6
hours in all.

But what about my history with the BF franchise? The only game I’ve
actually purchased in the series is 1942, released way back in 2002.
I did, however, play the BF3 beta on 360 and PC. It was okay, but not
enough to convince me to get the game, although I do now own it (but
not yet played it) when it was given away free for a limited time on
Origin. And that’s about all the experience I have with BF, so you
should keep that in mind.

Like BF4 before it, Hardline was revealed with a very neat demo of
two competing teams on a single map. It was tense, exciting stuff,
watching two coordinated teams fighting it out. But it’s all
bollocks, of course, because the demo is heavily scripted to show off
the game in the best possible light, and because nobody actually
plays the bloody game like that.

As you’d expect, Hardline is mostly a clusterf**k of combat and
explosions. You do, on occasion, get some interesting team dynamics
at play, but let’s face it, public servers will never offer much in
the way of team coordination or cooperation. The most you’ll get is
players actually throwing down support items or bothering to stop and
pick you up in a vehicle. Usually, the team that does these things is
the one that wins. Hell, have a couple of helpful Operators on your
team who’ll keep reviving people, and you’re pretty much an
unstoppable force. But we’ll get more into the combat and class
roles later.

So what makes Hardline different to BF4? Well, this has two new sides
– Cops vs Criminals. That could lead to some interesting gameplay,
right? Something different to the military based BF4? Ha! The whole
Cops vs Criminals thing is, frankly, a joke. They both run around
with military grade weapons, mini-guns, rocket launchers, attack
helicopters, laser trip mines etc. Just slapping the word ‘Police’
on a vehicle or uniform doesn’t make it feel any different, just
look different. But you know, if this was a mini-expansion to BF4 or
DLC (which is what I initially thought) I wouldn’t be too fussed by
this. Except it’s not, but we’ll get back to that.

So the two sides in terms of classes, vehicles and equipment (not to mention the identical play styles) are kind
of irrelevant when it comes to the theme. But what about how it
plays? Well, at first, I really didn’t like it. Movement felt
sluggish and the shooting strangely ‘floaty’. I think this was
partly due to coming into this from Titanfall. I kept trying to vault
over ledges, climb low walls etc. You can vault some stuff, but it’s
all rather clunky, not to mention buggy, as several times I got stuck
on something.

Over time I have to say I got more used to the movement and shooting,
but it wasn’t something I was particularly enamoured with. There are
tools such as grappling hooks and zip lines to get about a bit more
swiftly, but these also felt slow and clunky to use, simply leaving
you vulnerable to enemy fire. The vehicles in the game (especially
the cars) handle really badly, but they’re kind of pointless anyway
on the Beta map, simply being used to get more quickly from A to B
and then ditched and forgotten. Most of the combat in the Beta map
centres around one or two areas and, when one side gains the upper
hand in those areas, it’s pretty much game over. This also makes
a lot of the map rather redundant and empty because there’s sod all
reason to go anywhere else.

Graphics? Not great, but not terrible. I’m assuming some stuff was
reduced for the Beta. At least I hope it was. Performance was great
though, a very stable 60fps at all times. There was also a lot of
issues with hit detection in the game and the way some weapons are
either too effective, or not effective enough, but you can expect
stuff like that at this stage, such as rockets being used as CQC
weapons because they don’t seem to damage the person firing them.
Although I should say a little more about the hit detection. It’s
pretty bad. Sometimes you’ll land several shots to the head, but
nothing seems to register. Sometimes you’ll shoot someone, think
you killed them, but then they’ll turn and shoot you dead, only for
them to just drop dead a moment later from your attack.

It’s not a lag issue, I can say that for certain. It’s definitely
the way the game is registering hits, something to do with its ‘tick
rate’ although I’m no expert in that shit so I won’t even
pretend to know what it’s all about. But I’ve seen a lot of
people talking about it in the game chat and it’s something that
clearly needs to be fixed because it can be incredibly frustrating.

So you have 4 different classes and a level/progression system which
is exactly what you’d expect. Uh, what else? There’s a nice
degree of terrain destruction in the map that I liked, but I think
BF4 did this too. In fact, although I’ve not played BF4 I’ve seen
enough videos of it to wonder what exactly is new in Hardline?
This feels like all the same shit we’ve seen before simply
re-skinned as a Cops vs Criminals expansion. And you know, I’d be
okay with that. It feels a bit lazy, but as a slightly different,
themed DLC or expansion, I wouldn’t really care too much, provided
it was appropriately priced.

Oh dear. But Hardline isn’t a DLC or expansion. It’s a fully
priced release. Yeah, I’m talking 50 quid on Origin just for the
‘standard edition’. What the f**k? Are they serious? Is this
real? Is this really happening? It looks to me like they’ve taken
some maps that could have ended up in a BF4 DLC pack, slapped some
Police logos on some poorly modelled cars and said ‘HEY! IT’S AN
ENTIRELY NEW GAME GUYS HONEST!’

Like I said, I’ve not played BF4, so I can’t honestly compare the
two. But how can they possibly try to sell this as a ‘new’ game?
And even if BF4 didn’t exist (which only came out about a year ago,
didn’t it?) I’d still call Hardline out on how lazy it is when
it comes to classes, weapons and vehicles, because hardly any of them
fit with the game’s theme. As a re-skin of BF4
it makes some sense, but if that’s all it is (and a poorly done one
at that) then how can they justify such a price?

You know, I didn’t hate Hardline, despite my issues with it. I must
admit that it can be rather fun at times. Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe
the full game will deliver a lot more than the Beta did. I guess
we’ll find out in time, but right now, Hardline just feels like a
very cynical cash grab. If we’re the Cops, then I guess EA are the
criminals. And THEY HAVE THE LOOT.

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

It’s E3! E3! Are we excited yet? INNOVATIVE Well, I’m trying. But
it’s hard to get very excited this year. NEXT-GEN But there were a
few things that caught my eye. First up though, let’s talk about
the conferences. EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

Microsoft were up first. They opened their show to no one’s
surprise with the latest Call of Duty, which I have to say looked
rather terrible. CREATIVE It wasn’t all bad, but I think it was the
Indie showcase that most peaked my interest, with some visually
interesting looking titles, including featured games such as Ori
and the Blind Forest and Inside.
There was also a ‘Master Chief Collection’ whereby you get to buy
games you probably already own. Again. PLAY IT FIRST

EA were up next, and for once I was actually looking forward to it.
SPORTS I probably shouldn’t have. After being announced last year
at E3, I was hoping to see something more substantial from
Battlefront and Mirror’s Edge 2. But no. POWERFUL Nothing but a
couple of short videos for each. There’s another Battlefield coming
out though. Yay? And then we had to sit through the expected yearly
updates to their sports franchises. YOU HAVE THE LOOT

Ubisoft followed and, like the last few years, they really know how
to put on a good show. DANCING There was the new Assassin’s Creed:
Unity, now with 4 player co-op, which seemed to be a big new thing
this year. CO-OP But for me, games either need to be designed around
co-op or not at all. And if they aren’t, then you end up with a
tacked on element that only serves to water down the single player
component. Or maybe I’m just not much of a fan of co-op because I
don’t have any friends. TAKING IT TO THE NEXT-LEVEL

There was another showing of The Division, but we still really know
sod all about how it actually plays. Oh, and there’s a new Far Cry,
hopefully one which will address many of the issues I had with 2 and
3 (I’m not counting on it though) There was also a new Rainbow Six
game announced, but it looked a lot like CS:GO. Will it be MP only?
Or will there be a SP campaign? AWESOME

Sony were next, with a far too long conference that I watched on
catch-up and mostly skipped through. I don’t recall much about it.
There was an updated Last of Us for PS4. There was The Order: 1886,
which may just as well have been a movie – ‘press X to
cut-scene’. There was a new game from the Dark Souls guys, but it
was just a CG video which didn’t really tell us much. EXPERIENCE
There was also No Man’s Sky, which I thought looked neat.

I didn’t see the Nintendo conference, but I saw a few videos of
stuff, nothing that really interested me. OPEN WORLD So did any of
them make me want to rush out and buy an X-Box One, PS4 or WiiU?
Nope! Maybe in a year or two when some games actually start coming
out. COMING 2015

Anything else? Well, The Witcher 3 is looking great, but we’ve got
a long wait for that. Arkham Knight also looked nice, but that’s
been delayed to next year too. There was a new Tomb Raider game
announced with a hilarious title – The Rise of the Tomb Raider. And
there was also Alien Isolation, which looked very good. Oh, and GTA5
finally got announced for PC, although I’m not sure how much I
really care. I would have rather had a PC Red Dead Redemption. It
would have been one less reason to keep dusting off my 360.

Tuesday, 3 June 2014

Given that I’ve previously covered Watch_Dogs in a less than
favourable light, you might think I’m not particularly enamoured
with the title. And I must admit, given all the negativity
surrounding its release, I rather expected to come away from the game
severely underwhelmed. I knew from the early leak streams that
Watch_Dogs looked a solid, if not particularly inspired, open world
game. I figured the story and core missions would be lacklustre and
the side missions repetitive and dull. In short, I was beginning to
expect another Assassin’s Creed 3.

But after a disappointing and shaky start, Watch_Dogs slowly began to
win me over. Once I tweaked the game to run at a fairly stable 60FPS
(more on that later) and just got on with actually playing the
damn thing, I discovered a pretty great game buried beneath layers of
ridiculous hype. So is Watch_Dogs the first true ‘next-gen’
experience? Ha! You already know the answer to that. But does that
make it a bad game? Hell no!

So what sort of game is it? Watch_Dogs is a third person open world
game. Think GTA, but more moody and ‘press X to hack’. It’s a
game with more focus on hacking and stealth than all out action,
although there’s no shortage of that either. It’s set in a large,
highly detailed near future Chicago. You move about on foot, bike,
car, boat and train. No air travel, sadly. As you’d expect, there’s
a series of main story missions along with a large variety of side
and bonus content, plus several multiplayer modes.

But before we get into the thick of it, let’s talk performance. I
run an i7 4770K with a 3GB GTX780 and 8GB RAM. Upon starting the game
it auto-set to Ultra. This was a bad idea. With everything maxed out,
Watch_Dogs looks pretty great, especially when it rains, although it
still doesn’t look anywhere near as good as that fantastic E3 2012
demo. Unfortunately it’s nearly unplayable on these settings, at
least for me. And from what I’ve heard from others, people with
even more powerful rigs, they have the same trouble.

Watch_Dogs gobbles up VRAM like mad. AA is the real killer to FPS,
closely followed by Texture settings and Shadows. I can get about
20-30 FPS on Ultra and low AA, but it still gets pretty choppy.
Fortunately, I’ve not encountered a ‘stuttering’ problem whilst
driving that many others have reported. The game is simply not well
optimised. Even when I lower settings, the game still eats up VRAM
like crazy. And as good as it looks, it doesn’t look THAT good. It
certainly shouldn’t be taxing my system like this.

After about 5 hours tweaking the game and messing about in the
sandbox, I found a configuration that gave me a fairly stable 60FPS,
a mixture of High/Ultra (consuming on average 2.4GB of VRAM),
although it still inexplicably drops and locks to 30 on occasion. To
fix that I have to wiggle the camera about for a moment.

However, once I got those settings sorted, the game looked great. But
it certainly needs patches to improve performance. And as good as it
does look, you can’t help but recall that E3 demo and what could
have been. Whilst the world is very nicely crafted and detailed,
there are small and weird omissions such as dynamic lighting from
headlights, for example, or proper window reflections. Or hell, even
static reflections that make sense. I’ve seen ‘road level’
reflections in windows a couple of storeys high. It’s nothing game
breaking, at least not for me, but disappointing if you’re looking
for that ‘next-gen’ experience we were promised.

So how does it actually play? You have the on foot stuff where you
can walk or run about the city. There’s a simple parkour system for
vaulting over objects and climbing obstacles. Not quite to the extent
as in AC, but it’s fluid and enjoyable. In combat you have a
stealth cover system which works well enough. You have a selection of
guns and tools plus your hacking abilities which allow you to
approach missions in varied ways – from complete ghost, non lethal
stealth, to blowing shit up left and right.

There’s a slow motion ‘focus’ ability for pulling off perfect
head shots, but it’s most useful during driving sequences where you
can slow things down to more easily utilise your city hacks such as
traffic lights and bollards. Overall, the combat and stealth system
isn’t anything fantastic, but it’s still pretty good, and
certainly enhanced by your tools and environmental hacks. Enemy AI is
also decent enough as they take cover, flank, and try to work
together to flush you out.

Oh right, driving. This is proving to be something of a divisive
issue. I hear the keyboard controls for driving are terrible, but I
played with a pad so I can’t comment on that. The driving model
itself is very ‘arcade’ style in terms of handling, damage and
physics. You can plough through all kinds of stuff in a car, or even
a bike. The damage model looks nice, but it’s all a little silly
when you ram full speed into a tree with zero consequence except a
small bump. So yeah, very much an arcade style model, and whether
this appeals to you or not is a big part of whether you’ll enjoy
the game, because there is a lot of driving involved.
Personally, once I’d got over the initial strange feeling of the
model, I started to really enjoy it, especially the bikes.

So let’s move onto the story aspects. You play as Aidan ‘Batman
voice’ Pearce, a hacker on a mission of revenge. He’s a bit of a
moody sod, and although I would have liked to see him crack a smile
more often, he’s a decent enough character. I went into the game
not really expecting much from the story or characters, but the game
really surprised me in this regard. I actually wanted to keep
pressing on with the story to see how things developed, and the
supporting cast are all generally nicely done, especially Jordi –
it’s a shame we don’t get to see more of him. The ending does get
a bit muddled and feels a little rushed, but overall, I enjoyed
seeing it through.

So what does Watch_Dogs offer in terms of content? You have the core
story missions, about 38 in all, broken down across 5 chapters, and
these last about 15-20 hours. They offer a good variety of mission
types, some with multiple objectives and thankfully, very few that
restrict player creativity, as the game doesn’t keep holding your
hand or interrupting you with intrusive cut-scenes, but instead
allows you to approach them as you see fit.

If you know there’s one thing I always want out of open world games
like this, it’s the ability to tackle content in my own way, using
the tools the game gives me. And that’s exactly what Watch_Dogs
does. There are a few missions here and there that require a certain
approach, but these are the minority and are usually for story
purposes.

In addition to the core story missions there’s a ton of extra stuff
to keep you busy. You have the Fixer jobs, 40 in all, broken down
into 4 mission types. There are also the Gang Hideouts (15) and
Criminal Convoys (18). These make up the bulk of the extra side
stuff. You also have the ctOS command hubs to crack (which play out
like puzzle rooms in a way, as you have the option of hacking the
places without actually physically stepping inside of them). Plus
there’s the ctOS towers, which are like little platform puzzles.
And in addition to this you have the random mission stuff like the
crime preventions.

But wait, there’s more! You also have mini-games such as poker,
chess challenges (sadly no real chess) slot machines, drinking and
shell games. There’s also the city landmarks to visit. Oh, and
collectibles! But in this, collectibles are more than just pointless
fluff, as they can actually be used to unlock unique missions. And
there’s a variety of stuff, such as the privacy invasions which
give you an amusing and sometimes disturbing look into the lives of
the people of the city. Some are even more story based, such as the
Serial Killer clues. And there’s also the AR games, NVZN and Cash
Run. And with Cash Run you can actually create and share your own
tracks.

What else? Oh, there’s also the ‘virtual trips’ which are like
four games within a game. The best of which has to be Spider Tank,
whereby you tear your way through the city in a giant robot spider.
Why? Who cares! So there’s all of this, and I haven’t even gotten
to the multiplayer stuff yet. I don’t see how anyone could fault
Watch_Dogs in terms of content. It offers a hell of a lot of bang for
your buck, with a large quantity of good quality, varied and
enjoyable missions and features. If you clear absolutely everything,
you’re easily looking at anywhere from 40-60 hours worth of
content. The only thing I would have liked as a bonus in the single
player is a racing scene and challenges.

So let’s talk MP. There are several modes to choose from, but this
is one area of the title I really feel a little let down by, that
feels like it had a lot more potential. On top of that, it’s one of
the more buggy elements, but I’ll talk more on that later.

So you have the Mobile Challenge, whereby a player on a tablet can
initiate a police chase and try to stop you. Kind of fun, but
ultimately a little pointless unless you’re playing against a
friend, and finding games takes a long time. Then we have the Racing
mode, which once again, is a bugger to actually get into a game, but
is great fun when you do, and this is where the more ‘arcade’
driving model really shines. There’s also an online Free Roam mode,
but this is very disappointing as there’s sod all to do in it
except mess about in the sandbox. Why couldn’t we have missions to
do in co-op, such as the gang hideout or convoy jobs? The entire
Watch_Dogs Free Roam feels like a major missed opportunity. They may
add content through DLC, and I certainly hope they do, because as it
currently is, it’s really not worth bothering with.

You also have the online Hacking mode. This is certainly interesting,
as it places you into another player’s game and you have to ‘hack’
them without them finding you. It’s a game of cat and mouse,
although it can get a bit repetitive over time as your options for
‘blending in’ are somewhat limited. My favourite mode however was
probably the online stalking…I mean ‘Tailing’ where you enter
someone’s game and must observe them without them knowing. It’s
quite fun just acting like an NPC, strolling past them on the street,
watching them play the game, totally unaware of your presence. It’s
a neat addition to a game about security and privacy, and it feeds
into your own game as people can do the same to you at any time
provided you have the setting enabled.

The final online mode is the Decryption game, a team based one. It’s a lot of fun, although team balancing in terms of numbers isn’t great, and they really need
to sort out their matchmaking service because, like the racing mode,
it’s a bitch to actually find a game. A lot of the time attempting to
connect to the MP modes it just times out or randomly disconnects.

So what about the sandbox in general? Is it fun? Well, yes, for the
most part. With the profiler active you get an insight into every
NPC. You can hack bank accounts, view personal text conversations and
listen in on phone calls. There’s a lot of different ones to see
and hear. In fact, in 45 hours of play I rarely saw or heard the same
info more than twice. The citizens reactions in terms of their AI is
okay, but as you might expect, nothing special. Sometimes they’ll
just sit in a burning car until it explodes. There are a lot of nice
little touches though, such as NPCS pulling out their phones to snap
images of a car crash. They also call the police on you if you steal
their car or pull out a gun, and you can stop them in various ways –
jamming local communications, pointing your weapon at them, grabbing
their phone or simply shooting them in the head.

Police chases are fun enough thanks to the environmental hacks and
the ability to break line of sight and hide. It feels more realistic
than say, GTA, where the cops always seemed to be psychically aware
of where you were. Although that said, the omission of any water
based cops (at least I’ve not seen any) is a little crazy. The
sandbox, as you tend to expect from games of this type, also has
quite a few bugs and glitches, although they are more amusing than
irritating.

In terms of the city, it does generally feel quite alive and is fun
to explore, although some things don’t really add up, like the
rather pointless reputation system, or how NPCs sometimes react/don’t
react to your actions. But there’s a fun level of interactivity in
the city to mess about with and on the whole, it’s very nicely
crafted. I should add that there’s a neat little skill tree system
for unlocking new abilities, plus completing certain core/side stuff
unlocks new weapons, vehicles and perks.

I should also say that this isn’t a very ‘hard’ game, even on
the max difficulty. With so many weapons and tools at your disposal,
Aidan really is a one man army. One disappointing feature of the
sandbox is the music. This may be a matter of personal taste, but
there were only a handful of tracks I actually liked, so most of the
time I just shut it off. I liked that you could build your own
personal play lists, but why can’t I import my own music?

So what’s the verdict? Is Watch_Dogs a game worth owning, despite
all the crap surrounding the release and the technical issues? I’d
say yes, especially if you enjoy open world games, although be sure
to check out the driving model first. It’s a game with a decent
story, characters and set of missions, with an absolute ton of
additional, varied content to keep you busy. The MP may feel rather
limited and a case of wasted potential in terms of the Free Roam mode
(not to mention buggy in terms of matchmaking), but I hope that’s
something they’ll fix and build upon over time.

It’s sometimes easy to only focus on what a game does wrong, or
doesn’t offer. And there’s quite a few areas where that applies
to Watch_Dogs – small things, mostly, but small things can add a
lot to the experience. And when a game is as hyped up as this title was,
it’s no wonder people are frustrated by the lack of the small
details, things which we saw in that fantastic E3 demo two years ago.

But I think you also have to take into account what it does
offer, and in this case, that’s a hell of a lot. On balance,
Watch_Dogs is a great game. It was ridiculously over hyped and
Ubisoft are now feeling the sting from that. They certainly deserve
to. But nevertheless, it’s a game I thoroughly enjoyed, and as I
said, if you like open world games, I really don’t think you can go
wrong with it. Given that the game ends in a way that sets up
potential sequels, I hope that the next instalment, if we get one,
expands and builds upon what they’ve already delivered here, and then
perhaps goes one step further by delivering on that ‘next-gen’ promise that impressed so many at E3.

Sunday, 1 June 2014

Watch_Dogs is one ofthe
biggest releases of the year. It’s also proven to be one of the
most controversial. It’s difficult to talk about Watch_Dogs without
first talking about the many issues surrounding the game, both before
and following its release. I thought prior to doing my normal ‘Now
Playing’ review, that I should do a post about them.

The first issue, as I covered in a previous post, concerns the
frankly ridiculous number of release editions and bonus content.
Given that I’ve already spoken at length about this issue, I won’t
go over it again here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of these different
editions ended up creating another issue upon release, as some
people didn’t have access to the bonus content they had paid for.
It was a problem resolved within a few days, but nevertheless, it was
another reason why having multiple Day 1 editions and exclusive
content is a bad idea that only ends up shafting your own
customers.

The biggest issue prior to release though concerned the graphics of
the game. When Watch_Dogs was first unveiled at E3 in 2012 it looked
fantastic. Spin on a couple of years and one six month delay and
Watch_Dogs, even running on full PC settings, doesn’t look as good
as that early preview. People were understandably pissed at the
apparent downgrade of the graphics. After all, Ubisoft were hyping
Watch_Dogs as a true ‘next-gen’ experience. But in truth,
Watch_Dogs is a cross-generational title, and as such, it’s not
surprising that a downgrade was necessary. But to many, the early
preview was what people expected. And, depending on the platform,
it’s far from what they got.

The next main problem before the game even released was the early
leak. First came the 360 version, quickly followed by PS4 and PC.
More than a week before the official release, streams of the game
were live and spoilers were flooding the internet. For some, like me,
the streams were an opportunity to see the game in action without all
of the marketing spin. A chance to see the game in, shall we say, a
less than flattering light.

However, these early leaks angered a lot of people, customers who had
paid in advance for the game but were now sitting idly by. To make
matters worse, those paying customers also had to contend with Uplay,
not exactly the most popular platform, and one plagued with
connection issues upon release resulting in some being unable to even
install and play. For those of us on Steam, there wasn’t a pre-load
of the game until late the day before release. Even then, customers
here in the UK couldn’t unlock the game at midnight, but had to
wait until 9 the next morning. And, as previously mentioned, there
was the issue of the missing bonus content.

Basically, everything about the Watch_Dogs release felt like a kick
in the balls to those customers who actually paid for the bloody
thing. And then, on top of all that, the PC version of the game had
some rather bad technical issues, which is a little crazy given the
six month extension and the claim that PC was the lead platform. Many
people couldn’t even get the game to run and when they did,
performance was terrible.

So was the launch a complete disaster? Not according to Ubisoft, who
proudly announced how well the game was selling when they really
should have been apologising for all the crap people were having to
put up with, and promising patches to improve and fix the technical
problems. Unsurprisingly, the user score of the Watch_Dogs Metacritic
took quite the hammering.

But I’m not here to review all of this shit. I’m here to review
the actual game, and that’s something I’m still working on. But
it’s important to keep all of this in perspective. It’s important
to call Ubisoft out on this bullshit. The Watch_Dogs release, one of
the most anticipated releases in years, was a total f**king joke, and
they really only have themselves to blame.